On July 4th 2009, Emin Milli — blogger and one of the Alumni Network founders —spoke at “a Heinrich Böll Foundation roundtable dedicated to a democratization process in Azerbaijan, where he criticized the Azerbaijani government strongly.” Four days later, on July 8th 2009, he and Adnan Hajizada — blogger and co-founder of the OL! Azerbaijan Youth Movement — were attacked at a Baku Café by unknown ‘sportsmen.’ The bloggers were arrested and the following days they spent in detention — which turned into months — became a blow-to-free-speech headline in cyber history.
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